Know Me (Not)
by serenphoria
Summary: There's nothing like a crisis to bring out the truth. Five hints, and one time the Burkes didn't realize they figured it out. Hint 3 - Blood Is Thicker: "Mrs. Burke, Peter had a close call during surgery."
1. Hint 1: Freudian Slip

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**Fandom**: White Collar  
><strong>Title<strong>: Know Me (Not) **  
><strong>**Rating**: T for language  
><strong>SpoilersWarnings:** Season 3 mid-season finale. Peter, understandably, at his worst.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: There's nothing like a crisis to bring out the truth. Five hints, and one time the Burkes didn't realize they figured it out.

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><p>-'-<p>

**Know Me (Not)**

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_Hint 1: __Freudian Slip_

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It hadn't even been a minute since Peter sent Neal to the floor with a sore jaw and now he had to rely on that goddamn sonnova bitch to negotiate with the psychopath who had his wife. His **_WIFE_**.

Hughes had waved out everyone but Peter's team and the NYPD detective when Neal's phone rang, signaling for a trace while Neal put his cell on speaker-mode. Unnecessary, since the first thing Keller did was tut at Neal and ask to speak to him alone. "I mean it, Caffrey, just you and me," he said, his greasy voice tinny and irritating over the speaker, "unless you want Peter to hear his pretty little wife scream." It took Jones' firm grip on his shoulder to keep Peter from reaching through the phone and tearing the weasel's guts out his ears.

Neal made eye contact with Hughes, who gave the go-ahead with a tilt of his chin. He switched settings with a beep and lifted the phone to his ear.

What kind of game was he playing? Keller _knew_ the FBI and NYPD were on hand, waiting to question Neal the moment they hung up, yet he still had something for Neal's ears only. _Give me the treasure; don't involve the authorities,_ no doubt. Wanted to talk ransom and made a personal call to Peter as insurance because Keller knew he'd _make_ his CI do whatever it took to get El back, playing him like a pawn by capturing his queen. Peter hated that Neal was in charge of the conversation deciding El's fate. But even if Peter couldn't trust Neal (never, ever again), he could rely on – _needed_ to rely on – that silver tongue.

"Listen, Keller, we've got half of New York's law force looking for you. There's nowhere to run." Neal went on to make a compelling case as to why Keller was very, very screwed, tempering Peter's anxiety and rage down to a simmer, when suddenly Neal went very alarmingly quiet.

The stone in his stomach sank deeper as Peter watched Neal's Adam's Apple bob and his eyes widen, unblinking. _Shit_. Neal doesn't have a plan. He doesn't know his next move.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Neal finally said, his voice tight. He might have been going for a threatening tone, but from the guilt on his ashen face when he turned and stared at Peter, it was clear that Keller was holding something over him. _Let it be guilt_, Peter prayed darkly. Because if that was Neal was trying to mask panic…_oh, God, El!_

Neal was listening intently now, his head canted down and his eyes sweeping back and forth as if he were a machine processing information, running scenarios through his head. Keller was completely dominating the conversation. Not good. Not good at all. Then Neal pulled his shoulders back, a cornered animal on the offence, and his expression turned hard.

"If you touch her. If there is even one—" and there was a click. Neal lowered the cell from his ears slowly and stared at it, as if it were some alien device, as if he couldn't understand what had just happened.

"What did he say?" Peter blurted out as Hughes ordered, "Caffrey, report."

Still stunned, Neal looked up from the phone in his hands and found Peter, his eyes shining with distress, and swallowed.

"Caffrey, now."

"Uh, yeah, gimme a sec." Neal averted his gaze and Peter could almost hear the gears whirring behind Neal's eyes.

"Oh, no you don't," Peter said as he shook his head in disbelief. "No thinking, no spinning, Neal. Just tell us what he said, _verbatim_!"

Neal didn't react. It's like his voice didn't even register.

"Neal!"

"Peter!" Hughes warned sternly. Peter knew he shouldn't even be here—he was too close to the case—so he held his tongue. "Caffrey, answer the question," Hughes commanded.

Neal pulled himself together and picked his words carefully.

"He wants some information he thinks I have, asked me to meet him. No feds." He glanced over at Peter again. "No trackers." His voice was steady, but his eyes were missing its usual puckish glint. Instead, they silently pleaded for Peter to understand _or else he'll hurt El_.

"Just information?" Hughes clarified.

"Just a trade. I give him what he wants, El goes free."

It was killing Peter to not refer to the U-boat treasure, like a monster was trying to punch out of his chest, but the whole incident was still highly classified. So instead: "Oh, and you'll give him what he wants?" Peter said scathingly.

"I don't _have_ what he wants." Neal shot back. Peter didn't even try to hide his disbelief. "But he doesn't have to know." Neal turned back to Hughes. "I'll go in, lead him to a pre-determined location and you guys can take him down there."

"Sorry Mr. Caffrey," the detective from the Major Case Squad interrupted and Neal and Peter both started, having forgotten all about him. Detective Butch? No, Cassidy. "We're not sending in a civilian into a hostage situation with a dangerous fugitive." He glanced over at Hughes who nodded in support. "You give us the location and you let the professionals take it from there."

"I don't have one, not yet."

"But you will?"

"Yeah."

Neal paused, considering.

"Look, it has to be me." He brought his hands out in front of him before anyone could interrupt. "You're right, he is dangerous, and he won't hesitate to hurt El if he finds out I'm not following his instructions to the letter. Our best bet is to spring on him at the very last moment after El is safe. Let me meet him." He looked at the faces around the room: Diana, Jones, his eyes resting on Peter's mentor, Agent Kramer. "No trackers," he reminded them, "He'll know."

"A little convenient for you, don't you think?" Peter couldn't help saying, his face growing dark.

Neal had the gall to look a little affronted. "You're just going to have to trust me on this."

And that was it. Peter exploded.

"_Trust_ you?" Peter spat, breaking away from Jones' hold and moved menacingly towards Neal, "_Trusting_ you is how we got here. I gave you a chance at a better life, welcomed you into my home—"

"We're going to get her back—"

"—And this is how you repay us?"

Peter felt the tension in the room intensify, knew that his attack was counter-productive, but there was too much worry and hurt and anger and fear that had to go somewhere or he'd break.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to El!" Neal insisted.

"Stop! Stop." Peter was yelling now, punctuating each word with his hands. "You don't get to use her name, _Caffrey_! You've lost that right—"

"Gentlemen!" Hughes called out.

"—when you betrayed our trust—!"

"I know how this looks, Peter—"

Peter was vaguely aware of other voices in the room, but all he saw was _red_ and Neal and hardly noticed the pull on his arm.

"—and now that psycho's got her—"

"—believe me when I say getting her back is the only thing—"

"—and it's all. Your. Damn. _Fault_!"

Neal turned, pacing with a hand on his hip and the other pulling at his hair, agitated and visibly flustered with Peter in his face, unrelenting with his tirade.

"If I'd trusted my gut instead—!"

"Peter, _stand down_!"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME, DAD?"

The outburst echoed and hung pregnant in the air. Neal blinked hard and corrected himself: "Peter."

The sound of their heavy breathing marked the uncomfortable lull.

Any other day Peter would have latched on to that Freudian slip with glee, wondered what it revealed about Neal's past or headspace or implied about their relationship. Today, it felt like Neal punched the air out of his chest. Of all the times to be a smartass and belittle the situation, like this was just some inconvenience!

Peter's expression pinched closed and his voice was hard-edged and cold:

"Nothing. I want my wife back."

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><p><strong>AN**: Inspired by the often recced and brilliant _You Ruined Everything (In the Nicest Way)_ by jmtorres, the idea that there's more to why Neal wants to stay wouldn't leave my head. I haven't worked everything out the whole collection yet, but I thought I'd post this part now before it become even more AU after the premiere next week.

Thanks for reading! Your comments are appreciated.


	2. Hint 2: Leverage

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**Fandom**: White Collar  
><strong>Title<strong>: Know Me (Not) **  
><strong>**Rating**: K+ (this part)  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Outsider POV  
><strong>Summary<strong>: There's nothing like a crisis to bring out the truth. Five hints, and one time the Burkes didn't realize they figured it out.

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><p>-'-<p>

**Know Me (Not)**

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_._

_Hint 2: Leverage_

_._

It was late afternoon, less than twelve hours before the worst of the hurricane would reach New York. Sean hadn't slept in his own bed in two days, the accident rate several times normal with people in a panic, unaccustomed to driving in such poor weather. EMTs were taking double shifts and this next site he was riding to sounded like a doozy.

The accident was reported in lower Manhattan, the severity of it surprising considering how slowly traffic was moving as the roads bottlenecked out of the island, the crowding exacerbated with the subway shut down. Four-car pile-up with a sedan pinned between an SUV and a semi-truck. They weren't far from the hospital, but Sean was summarily anxious and frustrated as they crawled through traffic, the windshield wipers working overtime to the rhythm of flashing red lights.

An officer hustled over to meet them when he and the other paramedics finally tumbled out of the ambulance. His body was momentarily shocked by the cold, wet wind whipping at his windbreaker.

"What's the situation, officer?" Sean asked loudly, grabbing his kit.

"Smart car got wind-swept into the SUV and the whole thing just dominoed," the officer answered tersely, gesturing towards the crash site.

"Injuries?"

"In the sedan. Man, mid-forties, unresponsive. SUV side-swiped him into the semi. He's the most critical. Otherwise minor all around: scrapes, whiplash, some head trauma…"

Sean nodded in acknowledgement and thanked the Lord it wasn't as bad as he'd expected. "Hank, Reagan, grab the gurney!" he called to his teammates and radioed the other unit as he rushed over to the pinned car.

The rescue team was just pulling the unconscious man out when his team rolled up with equipment and made quick work checking his vitals, setting the neck brace, and lifting him onto the gurney. They found swelling in his abdomen where the car door depressed into his side and a nasty welt blooming on his forehead from whip-lashing into the window.

During the regimen, a second man staggered out from the wreck. Sean glanced up for a quick assessment. Smart suit, leather shoes – not ideal for a storm, but perhaps they had just come from work – and bleeding from his right eyebrow. Probably a concussion. The man looked disoriented and struggled against the ERTs trying to help him.

"Peter!"

"Sir, let them work, they'll take care of him."

Sean signaled to his teammate. "Reagan, we got this, check on the other guy," he said, nodding at the zootsuit who was now favoring his right side. He seemed unaware of the elements, his hands running through his hair, looking lost and shaken.

"Sir, what's your name sir?" Sean heard Reagan say, her voice firm and simultaneously gentle.

"Uh…Neal. It's Neal. Please…"

"Neal? Neal. Okay Neal, your friend is okay, we'll take care of him. Let us have you looked over first…"

The wind was picking up, whipping the stinging rain at him sideways. Hank had finished securing the man – Peter – to the gurney and they jogged him to the ambulance.

"Peter! Peter!"

Sean turned and saw the man struggling with an officer while Reagan urged him to stay calm. He wriggled his way past to the ambulance and held the doors open with a white-knuckled grip just as they were ready to leave.

"Sir, please, you can meet us at the hospital." Sean raised his hands up chest-level, ready to bodily restrain him if he needed to. He'd seen this countless of times before: friends, lovers, colleagues, and even strangers who suddenly felt responsible because they called 911, insisting on riding in the van.

"Please, I'm his son. I'm his son. Please."

There was a wild desperation in the man's eyes, and though he was probably Sean's age, old to be Peter's son, with water plastering down his hair and running off his nose, his clothes clinging wrinkled on to his shivering frame, he looked every bit a scared child too big in his father's clothes.

"Please," he pleaded again. "He's my dad."

Sean nodded.

"Get in."

-'-

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><p><em><strong>AN:** __To clarify, this fic is a collection of moments in which the truth manifests itself during/because of some crisis. Each part can be read as separate one-shots, but they are tied together by the five-times theme. Hope that's not too confusing!_

_Thanks for reading. Comments appreciated._


	3. Hint 3: Blood Is Thicker

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**Know Me (Not)**

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_Hint 3: Blood Is Thicker_

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"…car accident and suffered from heavy internal bleeding. We had to take you in for surgery."

Still trying to shake the fog out of his head, Peter nodded, just now noticing the muted ache throbbing throughout his mid-section to each beat of his heart. He must be coming off the good stuff.

"…concussion and whiplash, so you're probably experiencing headaches, neck pain, and possibly some short-term memory loss. Nothing to worry about, it's very common after..."

Peter pinched his face in concentration, trying to remember if he had forgotten anything. He was in a car. Right. Neal was there. What were they doing? It was raining. There was rain. Hurricane. They were evacuating from the city and meeting El in Jersey. He—

_El!_

"El! Is my wife okay?"

"Peter, I'm right here."

El materialized by his side, holding his hand in hers. Maybe she had been there the whole time. "It's fine, everything's fine. You're going to be fine."

Suddenly sober and alert, Peter took a moment to let the wash of comfort and relief warm him before fear seized him again: "Where's Neal? We were together—"

"He's fine, hon," El explained, brushing at the hair on his brow. "Just a little banged up. I sent him home for some clean clothes and proper rest." An image of Neal in scrubs (_Damn it—Did Neal impersonate a surgeon?_) sleeping uncomfortably in a hospital chair floated up from Peter's memory. "He stayed with you until the storm passed and I could get back into the city."

Peter nodded and let his head sink back into the pillow, suddenly feeling very, very tired.

The doctor gave them a moment before continuing.

"Peter, Mrs. Burke, as a matter of full disclosure, I need to inform you that Peter had a close call during surgery."

El attention turned laser sharp on the doctor. "What do you mean?" Peter squeezed her hand, reminding her that he's alright.

"As part of standard procedure for excessive internal bleeding, Peter received a transfusion during surgery, but his body rejected the blood. Typically using O negative—"

"The universally compatible blood type," El stated impatiently, and Peter could tell she was holding back from being prematurely angry at the hospital.

"Yes. It usually is. Peter has a rare blood type – AB Lan negative – which is perfectly healthy," he quickly reassured the Burkes, "but on it also means there's a risk the hospital won't have compatible blood in emergency situations. This normally would never be an issue, but the storm made it impossible for us to get supplies in time to treat Peter."

"Okay, so what happened?" The Burkes waited for the doctor to continue.

The doctor – Roberts, by his name tag – gathered himself. "We put out a call over the PA. And, someone in the waiting room was a match and volunteered for the emergency transfusion. It was, well…" Dr. Roberts shook his head, "miraculous, really; the chances for a match even in the normal population are next to nothing. But we got to Peter in time and testing shows no additional complications or risks as a result of the transfusion."

Peter didn't realize how dry his mouth was until he tried to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. El turned to him and smiled. "An angel was sent down to watch over my husband."

She squeezed Peter's hand and, lapsed Catholic though he was, Peter kept quiet and didn't say anything to undermine her sentiment. His own chest tightened, filled with...something; the something that came with realizing he could have died and was on the receiving end of a miracle.

"Is there...um..." Peter's voice was rough and he cleared his throat, "Is there a way we could say thank you?"

The doctor smiled. "Our volunteer asked to remain anonymous," he said, "but I think it was thank you enough knowing that you pulled through."

Feeling uncomfortably in debt, Peter nodded.

-'-

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><p>-'-<p>

The next time Peter woke, Neal was sitting in the same spot he saw him last, only now in a suit and his right arm in a sling, fiddling with his silly hat like a security blanket. He looked terrible.

"You look terrible," Peter said.

Neal huffed out a laugh. "Look who's talking." He gave Peter a long, searching look before turning his attention back to the brim of his fedora. "You gave us a scare, Peter."

"So I heard," Peter replied, groaning as he raised himself into a sitting position, "but a Good Samaritan saved my life."

"So I heard."

Peter studied Neal. His knee was bouncing slightly in a rare show of unfocused energy, his mouth pulled in an unhappy line.

"You okay?"

Neal whipped his head back up in attention.

"What? _Me_?" He smiled and _there_ was the Neal Caffrey he knew. "Yeah. Yeah, this is nothing." He gestured vaguely at himself, drawing Peter's eyes to the butterfly bandage on Neal's brow, and took a breath. "You?"

That wasn't the question Peter was asking, but he let it go and grew quiet as he reflected on his close call.

"I was...really lucky. _Really _lucky, you know?" Peter might be on the mend, but his defenses were still down, the whole ordeal leaving him vulnerable and bewildered. "That _that_ impossible someone was there at the right place at the right time and would go through all that, you know? For a stranger."

Neal scratched at the crook of his good arm and looked a little wistful.

"Nothing any decent human being wouldn't have done."

"Still."

They lapsed back into silence.

Peter looked at Neal and frowned. They've been on the outs since the Keller incident, Neal barely two weeks out of his crutches, their relationship still tenuous and strained. Yet despite still wanting to be mad at Neal, _is_ still mad at Neal, Peter's heart warmed a little knowing that his CI - his _partner_ - had stayed with him through storm. Literally and figuratively.

"Hey," a thought occurred to Peter, "did you meet him?"

"Excuse me?" Neal asked, pulled back into the present.

"The Good Samaritan, did you meet him?"

Neal looked at Peter suspiciously. "He – or _she_," he canted his head for emphasis, "was pretty insistent about staying anonymous." Neal answered with that smile that meant he's telling the truth but not answering the question. He probably does it without even thinking. "Guess some people don't like being recognized."

"But you could make a positive ID?"

"Agent Burke, are you asking me to help you breach a person's right to privacy?" Neal made a show of his mock affront.

"Fine, smart-ass," Peter responded without much heat. The moment almost felt normal between them. He let out a frustrated breath through his nose. "I guess we all have our secrets."

Peter thought he saw Neal still out of the corner of his eyes. He _was_ referring to the Good Samaritan. Sort of. Neal folded his arms across his chest and settled in his seat, and another uneasy silence fell between them.

Distracted by Neal worrying at an itch inside his elbow, Peter suddenly had an odd thought cross his mind.

_Impossible_. The idea really gave new meaning to "two of a kind," or "two sides of the same coin," or whatever people had said about their cop-and-robber partnership. _Peter Burke had met his match_, they teased, back when Caffrey was Bonds. What are the chances that Neal and he were a _match _match?

He'd say something, right? If it were the case? In gentleman-thief accounting it balanced out: _Yes, __I put El in danger, but I saved your life, so we're square. _

But then again, Neal wasn't the type of person who'd use saving Peter's life as a bargaining chip or to excuse his past actions. And whatever they were, they weren't just business partners. Neal probably wouldn't want Peter to be burdened with a debt he could never repay. Besides, it wasn't really something to boast about - it wasn't clever or elegant or anything that required knowledge or skill. It was just blood.

Peter didn't know how much stock he wanted to put on this errant thought. Maybe this strange pressing need to express gratitude for his new lease on life was overriding his good sense.

"Why does it matter?" Neal asked, picking up the conversation long after Peter thought it ended.

Peter shrugged.

Statistically, he's probably wrong, but he's willing to hedge his bets. Just in case.

"If you ever bump into the guy, tell him thank you. I owe him my life."

"Yeah," Neal nodded, his voice a little rough, "Of course."

-'-

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><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> The hurricane refers to Hurricane Sandy. Yes, that's how long this has been sitting in my drafts folder *is shamefaced*. This part follows directly after the chapter "Leverage" and several weeks after episode 3.10 "Countdown." Not canon-compliant episode 3.11 "Checkmate" and beyond.


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